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JERUSALEM (AP) _ Israel will not allow Lebanon to divert water from a border
river shared by the two countries, Israel's defense minister warned Tuesday,
a day after a U.S. water expert inspected a Lebanese
pumping project there.
Israel's foreign minister said he would
raise the issue later Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in New York.
On Monday, the U.S. expert watched as Lebanese workers
laid pipes to pump water from the Wazzani River, a tributary of the Hasbani River which flows into the Jordan River, a major source of water for Israel. Lebanon says it needs the water for
parched villages in the south.
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told reporters during a tour of the
West Bank town of Bethlehem that the Hasbani water system provides 10 percent
of Israel's water and diverting it is a ``violation of every agreement we
have signed in the past.''
``Israel cannot tolerate the diversion of
the waters of the Hasbani,'' Ben-Eliezer said. ``I trust the Americans to
stop it.''
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud has said the project will continue. The
leader of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group has
said Hezbollah will ``cut off Israel's hands'' if it uses military
force to stop the scheme.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Tuesday said prospects for a
compromise were uncertain because of Hezbollah, which waged an 18-year battle
against Israel's occupation of south Lebanon. Israel withdrew in May 2000.
``I don't know what is happening with the power forces in Lebanon. There is one power in Lebanon
that is trying to destroy everything and that is Hezbollah. It is a force
that does not always obey (the government),'' Peres told Israel Radio.
``We also don't know where Syria stands on this issue,'' Peres added,
referring to the main power broker in Lebanon. ``But the efforts the United
States will make on this issue, in my opinion, will be very strong.''
Dan Zazlavsky, the former head of Israel's Water Commission, said Israel
could solve the problem with ``a few tank shells'' at the pipes being built
on the Lebanese side of the border, just as it did in 1964 when Syria tried
to divert water from the Bannias River.
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